Summit Agenda

Status Check: Are Small Sats Pushing the Envelope?

The morning briefing is only open to government, military, service providers, and integrators.
*Presentation to begin at 8:00 a.m.

With a market as dynamic as small satellites, 5 years provides ample room for a growth spurt. What new applications have been enabled by developments since 2010? How are mass, power, and propulsion impacting payload and operations evolution? Will small sats play a vastly different role in 2030’s market than they do today? Ultimately, what developments can we expect going forward?

Beyond individual projects and constellations that come and go, lasting trends and new ways of thinking are emerging from this market to impact the ongoing needs of communication, Earth Observation, and situational awareness while facilitating novel applications. By examining market status in 5-year increments both past and future, NSR will take attendees through the recent spate of small sat development, assess current capabilities, and explore future functionalities and operational potential of these unique form factors.

Surrey Satellite Technology US

Continental Breakfast

Welcome Remarks by Jeff Hill, Conference Chairman

Analysis of Hosted Payload and Smallsat Solutions by U.S. Air Force Assistant Deputy Under-Secretary Dr. David Hardy

Room: Independence Ballroom-Independence Level (5B)

During his keynote, Dr. Hardy will discuss how the Air Force would assess potential hosted payload and small satellite technology offerings from the commercial aerospace sector under its requested $5.5 billion budget for space investments in 2017.

Dr. David A. Hardy

Associate Deputy Under Secretary

U.S. Air Force (Space), Office of the Under Secretary of the Air Force

Global Sustainability from Space: Why Non-Traditional Investors are Buying Into Small Satellites

Room: Independence Ballroom-Independence Level (5B)

OneWeb Founder, Greg Wyler, who delivered the keynote at SATELLITE 2015, will be joined on stage by Coca-Cola’s Chief Sustainability OfficerBeatriz Perez, as they deliver a dual-keynote presentation about why non-traditional investors are buying into small satellite constellations and what it means for global sustainability initiatives.

Bea Perez

Coca-Cola

Greg Wyler

OneWeb

Morning Break

Room: Independence Ballroom-Independence Level (5B)

10:40 a.m. – 10:55 a.m.

Hosted Payload Alliance “State of the Union”

Room: Independence Ballroom-Independence Level (5B)

Al Tadros, Chair of the Hosted Payload Alliance (HPA) and Vice President of satellite manufacturing company SSL, will present a “State of the Union” on hosted payloads, during which he will discuss recent opportunities and challenges for the hosted payload community. Established in 2011, HPA is a satellite industry alliance whose purpose is to increase awareness of the benefits of hosted government payloads on commercial satellites. Tadros will cover recent developments in the organization’s push for wider government and commercial adoption of hosted payloads.

Al Tadros

Chair

Hosted Payload Alliance

Small Satellites and the NRO

Room: Independence Ballroom-Independence Level (5B)

Ms. Tina Harrington, a member of the Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service, is Director, Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) Systems Acquisition Directorate, National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Chantilly, Va. As SIGINT Director, she leads a joint team responsible for the design, development, and acquisition of United States Signals Intelligence Space Systems for the Intelligence Community, military services, and allied partners.

Tina M. Harrington

National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)

Delivering and Attaching Hosted Payloads Post-Launch

Room: Independence Ballroom-Independence Level (5B)

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program managers Dr. Jeremy Palmer and Dr. Gordon Roesler reveal the latest developments in the agency’s Payload Orbital Delivery (POD) System, which aims to offer a new, low-cost approach to deliver small payloads to GEO orbit. The presentation will also cover DARPA’s Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program that is planned to be capable of attaching payloads to operating GEO spacecraft. Dr. Palmer and Dr. Roesler will explain how combining the capabilities of PODS and RSGS would make rapid delivery and installation of new technologies hosted at GEO possible.

Dr. Gordon Roesler

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

Networking Lunch

How Commercial Partners Can help NOAA Realize its Visions for New Weather Satellite Systems

Room: Independence Ballroom-Independence Level (5B)

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a very busy schedule ahead as it builds out its new weather satellite infrastructure system for the United States with the planned launch of GOES-R in November 2016 and JPSS-1 in 2017. NOAA is directing these projects in close coordination with NASA and its partners, and with the continued support of the U.S. Presidential Administration and the Congress. NOAA is also executing the Commercial Weather Data Pilot to demonstrate commercial sources of data on orbit, and preparing to pursue commercial hosted payload opportunities to provide continuity of the SARSAT and Argos-Data Collection System using Air Force contracting processes. Dr. Volz’s presentation will provide updates on these efforts and explain how smallsats and hosted payloads can contribute to the success of NOAA’s mission.

Dr. Stephen Volz

Assistant Administrator for Satellite and Information Services

NOAA

SmallSats and Space Debris: Taking Responsibility in Space

Room: Independence Ballroom-Independence Level (5B)

While it is exciting to see several satellite companies announcing plans to launch hundreds of SmallSats in the coming years, the sudden boom in spacecraft also creates a potentially hazardous space debris environment in orbit. How can industry develop collaborative guidelines for small satellite operations while the population is still manageable? What are the ways to craft the best regulatory regime for preserving and protecting the space environment? Doug Loverro and Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch will deliver a joint presentation outlining how industry and government can jointly develop strategies and policies to ensure satellite launches and operations are conducted within a safe, orbital environment. The presentation will also cover whether or not allowing the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to take on space traffic monitoring responsibilities is a viable solution to the space debris issue.

Inmarsat Government Services

Douglas Loverro

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy, U.S. Department of Defense

What is the True Definition of “Flexible Satellite Capacity” for Budget-Conscious Government Agencies

Room: Independence Ballroom-Independence Level (5B)

The mission of the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) SATCOM office is to provide customer-focused, cost-effective solutions that support joint warfighting capabilities. DISA Program Analyst Vincent Kolakowski’s speech at the 2016 Hosted Payload Summit will focus on why government end-users consider flexible capacity the most attractive feature of potential satcom services. He will show how DISA links greater flexibility with improved utility, decreased waste, and cost savings and explain how commercial hosted payload and smallsat service providers have a unique opportunity to meet the increasingly variable requirements of the U.S. defense and intelligence communities.

Vincent D. Kołakowski

Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)

Afternoon Break

Room: Independence Ballroom-Independence Level (5B)

3:00 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.

NASA’s TEMPO Instrument — a Pathfinder for Hosted Payloads

Room: Independence Ballroom-Independence Level (5B)

A panel consisting of Mr. Stephen Hall, NASA’s new project manager for the TEMPO Hosted Payload Mission; Mr. Greg Stover, Program Manager for NASA’s Earth System Science Pathfinder Program Office; and Major James Crane from the USAF’s Hosted Payloads Office, will discuss the current status and plans for the TEMPO instrument. TEMPO, which stands for “Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution, ” is a scanning ultraviolet/visible spectrometer being built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp for NASA and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. When launched, TEMPO will measure chemical species critical to air quality over Greater North America, specifically Ozone (O3), Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and Formaldehyde (H2CO). During the presentation, the panel will discuss why NASA believes TEMPO’s future success will be a key turning point for hosted payloads – leading not only to a greater understanding of our atmosphere, but possibly to greater government demand for similar hosted payload capabilities.

NASA Langley Research Center

Greg Stover

NASA

Maj. James Crane

US Air Force

Insights and Lessons Learned from a Hosted Payload Practitioner

Room: Independence Ballroom-Independence Level (5B)

Harris Corporation program manager, Sid Stewart, and his team have recently completed production of 81 hosted payloads for Aireon LLC. Many of these hosted payloads incorporate additional payloads within the Aireon hosted payload enclosure, or hosted-hosted payloads, to support additional missions. Significant progress has been made integrating these differing hosted payload configurations into Iridium NEXT satellites. Stewart will discuss some insights and lessons learned from the perspective of a hosted payload practitioner. He will also discuss some of the limitations of commercial hosting as a platform to enable affordable access to space and offer perspectives on where smallsats can fill those gaps.